Thursday, April 18, 2013

DUCK!

Monkeys are funny critters. We truckle along, minding our own business, eating bugs from other monkeys' fur, and mostly trying to just get along. But, you should never, ever, forget our uncanny accuracy for flinging poo when aroused.

The vast majority of time, the student interns we take on in the office are lovely, hard-working humans who clearly understand that sucking up will get them far. But, every rule has its exception.

We had Bad Intern this semester. Truthfully, we should have sent her packing at the very start of the semester. But, she came to us from a program we work with often, and her professor vouched for her. But, when she couldn't be available for an interview, we should have known this would be more trouble than it was worth. Later, when she blew off her training/orientation TWICE, we should have said "beat it." When she showed up an hour and a half late to her third scheduled training/orientation, we should have turned off the lights and locked the doors.

We tried to work with her, even when it became clear we could not assign her to the usual internship type activities. We constantly were moving her deadlines back or scaling back what we asked for from her. When she insisted that she only owned torn-up, skin-tight jeans, we should have just told her to cut her losses.

Two weeks ago, when she showed up 10 minutes before quitting time and pulled a head-bobbing attitude with me, I told her to pack it in. I sat down with the relevant staffers, and we filled out her evaluation form, trying to be honest and fair.

This week, she thought she could do an end-run around my evaluation and ask one of the other employees to fill one out for her. (She seems to believe this employee was her "pal.") The employee independently filled out the evaluation form, and not surprisingly, her rankings were identical to those the rest of the staff settled upon. But, then, in a stroke of genius, this staffer wrote a long narrative giving full explanation for the ratings. She detailed the many absences or tardy appearances. She included specifics about refusing to incorporate guidance from others, about poorly written work (including wholly invented words), and oft reduced expectations.

Silly intern, you should have just walked away quietly, rather than think you could manipulate us. OH, and you've got some stuff in your hair you might want to wash out. And, to think, this time it wasn't me with the spot on poo fling.